1. Fields of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to an apparatus and method of learning or teaching operations, such as typing, and, more particularly, to operations based on a color-coded data input device, such as a typing keyboard, divided into sectors by color and aided by sets of color-coded flash cards, finger appliques and a "look-away" image of the color-coded data input device.
2. Discussion of Background and Prior Art
There is a long felt need for an easy way to learn to type.
Sectorized keyboards with finger applied aids have been known for almost 100 years since the invention of the typewriter. The earliest device used key-coded finger rings bearing letters of the keyboard divided into groups based on convenience and finger dexterity. These devices gave birth to a variety of gadgets mounted on top of the user's hands. These devices provided a variety of finger-key correlations by group and finger-home position correlations and were designed to provide an unobstructed view of the keyboard encouraging students to look toward their hands and hence the keyboard as they learned to type.
Sector-color-coded touch type keyboards have also been known for almost 100 years. It was early recognized that it was helpful to blank out the keyboard with opaque discs in alternate sets of distinctly, differently colored columns, coupled with the use of a discardable, matching, color-coded index or letter plate which facilitated initial learning of typing. Despite this early teaching, it has not proven successful. Typing to this day remains a difficult task to learn.
In the early 1960's still other methods of teaching touch typing were introduced including a system whereby the keyboard remained locked until it was unlocked by the student touching the correct key, or electrical contraptions which vibrated the student's fingers as an instructor typed on a master and lighted a central display. Of course, these systems also failed to achieve wide acceptance.
With the advent of widespread use of computer keyboards in the late 1960's, Mildred Olsen invented a system described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,501,849 utilizing a device for teaching typing and language skills to people culturally deprived of language development. Her system was based on use of a sector-color-coded keyboard blanked by opaque discs with matching colored finger rings and a chart, picture or instruction manual which presented colored circled letters or recognizable objects (i.e,. a cat) with a direction arrow. By color and direction indications, the student would know which finger to move and where to move it to strike the appropriate key. While Olsen had the right idea, nevertheless, she did not unlock the key to learning typing easily because her system still encouraged looking at the hands and keys with the resultant use of hunt and peck technique. Her device has not been commercially successful.
So, too, the more recent software implemented, computer-aided methods of various types have only modestly advanced the art by reverting to updated earlier methods, such as, applying color-coded adhesive backed appliques to finger guides mounted on the user's hands in an effort to teach typing by sector-color-coded methods.
No one has recognized the problem is the tendency of typing novices to develop the unhealthy "hunt and peck" technique at the initial learning stage. It is disgraceful, for example, to observe students, in particular, pre-school aged children, having a computer keyboard thrust upon them and then watching them stare at the keyboard and hunt and peck as they search the keyboard to learn where the letters are located and which finger to use to strike the desired key. Once these bad typing habits are learned, they are very difficult to break.
Accordingly, today there is still a long felt need for an easy method to learn typing which effectively teaches color-symbol-finger-sector-key position correlations in a way that avoids the initial development of hard to break, bad, typing habits.